Imagining the Border Otherwise: Global engagements with solidarity, relationality and survival

拟议中的项目是一个原创的、迫切需要思考的项目，它解决的问题是，边界是否重要，以及以何种方式重要，超出了它的物理基础设施。这是一部思想史，挖掘了四位基本思想家的政治思想中的边界问题：格洛丽亚·安扎尔多瓦、坦苏拉·奥、让·热内和休伊·牛顿。就像国家边界不断扩散并扩大其实施暴力的能力一样，对它的抵抗也在不断扩大。通过更加严厉的移民制度、扩大的监视设备、军事化的边境巡逻以及拥有广泛权限和警察权力的边防警卫，边境的强化已经看到了对围绕民族国家构建的政治现状和社会想象的反击，这些现状和社会想象旨在将一些人拒之门外，以保护内部人员。那些被排除在公民权范围之外的人，没有对国家和安全避难所的要求，被关在笼子里，被随意拘留，并以“国家安全”和“边境神圣”的名义在海上挣扎。我们被告知这是人民的意愿，而“人民”（大部分）被编码为白人、异性恋、守法的公民。人权律师、支持移民的非政府组织、难民委员会以及从事跨境和（非）流动政治研究的学者们细致地记录了僵化的国家边界和支撑边界的安全制度所造成的危害。虽然这种批评并不新鲜，但人们对陷入往往是专制政权与敌对或不受欢迎的国家之间的战斗交火中的人们的安全和福祉重新产生了兴趣。对于那些为这些无法进入的人（即使他们在法律上有“权利”）辩护的人以及这些人自己来说，国家边界意味着一个封锁、停止和暴力的场所。边境限制入境，在这个想象中，如果不是对逃离迫害、恐吓或没有希望的生活的无辜人民犯下的一长串罪行中的罪魁祸首，那么它就会隐约出现。于是，开放国家边界就成为解决这种状况的合乎逻辑的办法，一些人鼓动废除边界不仅是最激进的选择，也是最无用的选择。这个项目对许多边界怀疑论者和废奴主义者的主张表示同情，同时努力打开关于国家边界的对话，以检查它与其他种族资本主义技术的纠缠，尤其是私有财产和警察。这本书将边境地带和边界视为一种生成空间，教给我们一些关于边界想象的局限性的东西，它邀请不同的观众（学者、实践者、政策制定者）停留在四位二十世纪中期作家的思想上，他们已经在想象一种不同的抵抗、拒绝以及与边界共存的方式。四位学者活动家：安扎尔多瓦、奥奥、热内和牛顿，都对边界——主要是国家的，但不是唯一的——以一种既具有破坏性又具有创造性的方式条件存在的多种方式提供了见解。与他们的思想一起工作，通过他们的思想，《思考边界》试图仔细地引导许多辩论和问题，这些辩论和问题使边界研究成为当今的一个学术领域，同时也涉及对安全性质、种族资本主义、私有财产和废除影响世界各地人们生活现实的监禁制度的更广泛关注。它并不假装为困扰我们共同存在的许多弊病提供一个快速解决方案，甚至也不假装提供一个长期现成的解决方案，而是在前人想象的未来的承诺中寻求安慰。这项研究不是为失去这个潜在的未来而哀悼，而是建立在他们广阔的视野之上，认为另一个世界不仅是可能的，而且是必要的。

The proposed project is an original and intellectually urgent project that addresses the question of whether, and in what ways, the border matters beyond its physical infrastructure. It is an intellectual history that excavates the question of borders in the political thought of four foundational thinkers: Gloria Anzaldua, Temsula Ao, Jean Genet and Huey Newton.Just as the national border proliferates and expands its capacity to enact violence, so does resistance to it. The hardening of borders through ever more draconian immigration regimes, expanded surveillance apparatuses, militarized border patrols, and border guards with broad remits and police powers, has seen a concomitant push back against a political status quo and social imaginary structured around nation-states that are designed to keep some people out as a way protect those within. The people rendered outside the remit of citizenship, without a claim to the state and safe haven are locked up in cages, detained at will, and left to flounder on seas in the name of 'state security' and 'border sanctity'. This we are told is the will of the people, with the 'people' (largely) coded as white, heteronormative, law-abiding citizens. Human rights lawyers, migrant support NGOs, refugee councils, and scholars working on border-crossings and the politics of (im)mobility that enable and shape the movement of people have meticulously documented the harm caused by ossified national borders and the security regimes that underpin them. Whilst this critique is not new, there has been a renewed interest in the safety and well-being of people caught in the crossfires of the battle between often despotic regimes and hostile or unwelcoming states. For those defending these people without access (even if they legally have the 'rights') as well as for the people themselves, the national border signifies a site of blockage, stoppage, and violence. The border restricts entry, looming large in this imaginary as a, if not the, culprit in a long list of crimes against innocent people fleeing persecution, intimidation, or a life without hope. The opening up of national borders then becomes the logical solution to this state of affairs, with some agitating for border abolition as not merely the most radical but also the most utile option. This project is sympathetic to many of the claims of border sceptics and abolitionists, whilst at the same time striving to open out the conversation about the national border in order to examine its entanglements with other technologies of racial capitalism, not least private property and policing. Looking at borderlands and frontiers as generative spaces that teach us something about the limits of a border imaginary, it invites diverse audiences (academics, practitioners, policy makers) to tarry with the thought of four mid-twentieth century writers, who were already imagining a different way of resisting, rejecting, as well as surviving with the border. The four scholar-activists: Anzaldua, Ao, Genet, and Newton, all offer insights into the multiple ways in which borders - primarily national but not solely - condition existence in a manner that is at once disruptive and creative. Working with and through their thought, Thinking the Border Otherwise tries to carefully navigate the many debates and issues animating border studies as an academic field today, as well as engaging with wider concerns around the nature of security, racial capitalism, private property and the abolition of carceral systems that affect lived realities of people around the world. It does not pretend to offer a quick fix or even a long-term readymade solution to the many ills plaguing our common existence, but rather seeks solace in the promise of a future imagined by those that came before. Rather than mourn the loss of this potential future, the research builds on their expansive visions to argue that that another world is not just possible, it is also necessary.